Queensland election: why the Coalition lost (letter)

by Frank Bellet

News Weekly, September 30, 2006

Sir,

The Queensland state Liberals' display of gross ineptitude in the lead up to the election is par for the course for these bumbling political amateurs.

These fumblers have spent the last quarter of a century publicly fighting the Nationals rather than Labor, possibly because most of them, philosophically, are indistinguishable from Labor politicians. The cosmetic difference is that Liberals in Queensland treat their politics as a hobby, while Labor treats theirs as a religion.

Some elections ago, the bumbling Nationals, on the other hand, somewhat sportingly handed over about six seats to the Liberals to contest, only to see some of them vanish into the Labor camp.

Years ago, the Nationals were fooled by the media into distancing themselves from Pauline Hanson's One Nation, when Frederick the Sightless One, could have seen that they needed to find out why their constituents deserted them for One Nation and then try to discover how to win them back.

At present, conservative voters are not represented by any mainstream party in state politics.

In the future this will happen only when the Nationals bite the bullet and contest every seat in Queensland, throwing off the state Liberal albatross that is choking them. If they win, they can talk about a coalition then.